In a move that suggests American courts are now being run by headless chickens, a judge recently laid this egg of a foul idea:

In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said Thursday that “boneless wings” refers to a cooking style, and that Berkheimer should’ve been on guard against bones since it’s common knowledge that chickens have bones. […] “A diner reading ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers,” Justice Joseph T. Deters wrote for the majority.

Deters could not be more wrong. Where do I begin?

First off, “boneless” is never a cooking style—uncooked chicken can be boneless. It by definition means without bones, regardless of how you cook it.

boneless:
adjective /ˈboʊn·ləs/ (also boned, us/boʊnd/)
(of meat or fish) without any bones

It’s common knowledge that boneless means no bones. This ruling is absurd. The judge is completely backward on “common” thinking, as nobody ever assumes chicken has bones when it’s described as boneless. That’s like saying it’s common knowledge that chicken is raw when it’s called fried.

If the meat is raw, calling it fried is false. If the meat has bones, calling it boneless is false.

Saying that boneless wings don’t guarantee the absence of bones is another cluck-up by the judge. “Boneless” is used to indicate the lack of bones. There’s no other reason for the word, whereas “wings” or “fingers” describe the preparation style. If someone orders wings and gets a pancake, or orders fingers and gets a ball, they would call it misleading.

In fact there was also a lawsuit by someone who ordered boneless wings when they were instead served ground chicken nuggets. Wings aren’t nuggets. People say boneless wings to mean they don’t have bones, whereas nuggets are ground up, showing how the term boneless can be unnecessary or redundant.

This judge is apparently unable to process such basic logic of the situation, making the American urge to sue highly problematic. I mean the judge somehow managed to get others to rule incorrectly along with him that boneless means bones.

As someone who prefers eating bones to meat, I find this judge to be completely divorced from reality. I’m not ordering boneless anything with the hope of ever finding a bone. But I am ordering wings instead of nuggets because it means something different.

Deters turns out to be infamously cruel and confused, struggling with moral reality.

The Rev. Paul Mueller, vice director and superior of the Jesuit community at the Vatican Observatory outside Rome, responded to those comments in an Aug. 6 letter to Deters, telling him, “I am disappointed, embarrassed, and scandalized that you, not only a Catholic but also a fellow alumnus of St. Xavier High School, have used the platform of your public office to oppose and confuse the moral teaching of the Church in so open a fashion.

“As Prosecutor,” Mueller added, “you are obliged to enforce civil law. But as a Catholic, you are obliged to endeavor to conform your own mind and heart to the higher moral law and help others in their efforts to do the same – not to undermine their efforts. The teaching of the Church is clear: in defending society against evil, it is morally unacceptable to make use of the evil of the death penalty.”

Well, when it comes to chicken, I certainly see how someone just “used the platform of public office to oppose and confuse the moral teaching” of thou shall not lie about boneless.

Deters’ latest ruling fits his past positions. It translates into him wanting Americans to choke to death on a bone—literally.